


in the gentle light as the morning nears

by thatsparrow



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Spoilers: Episode 74
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: The first time Samliel speaks to Reani, she's four years old, and the pain of her mother's absence still stings like cold water against a scraped knee.[spoilers for episode 74]





	in the gentle light as the morning nears

**Author's Note:**

> mica and reani both stole my heart so here's some quick speculative backstory for her
> 
> title from "he doesn't know why" by fleet foxes

The first time Samliel speaks to Reani, she's four years old, and the pain of her mother's absence still stings like cold water against a scraped knee. 

She usually doesn't remember her dreams, but this one sticks: it starts in the streets of Nicodranas with young Reani chasing after her mother, even if by now she can't see more than a flicker of her mother's lapis-dyed skirt moving through the crowd. Landen's voice is behind her, calling her back, but Reani presses forward, pushing through as the tide of people surges closer, all knees and hips and feet twice the size of her own. There's a part of her that understands how dangerous it would be to fall—how easily her young bones could be bruised and broken. 

In a less kind version of the dream, Reani reaches for the whisper of ocean-blue fabric in front of her—lunges, almost—and loses her footing on the uneven cobbles, scraping her baby-soft palms against the stones as the crowd separates her from her mother for good. Not this time, though. As Reani falls forward, a pair of hands catch her under the arms, golden-brown and glowing bright enough that she nearly has to close her eyes from it.

_ I know it hurts, child_. She hears the words without _ hearing _ them, feeling them in the back of her skull; she's not even sure the figure has a mouth. _ But you have to stop chasing her. You've already fallen too many times in pursuit of a desire you can never catch up to. Not yet, anyway_.

Reani wonders if the figure is her father, but is too afraid to ask. Regardless, the figure seems to hear the question anyway, answering with what feels like a laugh.

_ No, child. This isn't that kind of story. But I am here to watch over you, instruct you—perhaps to be a parental figure in my own right. _The figure's hands pull back from Reani, their luminescence dimming to something not quite so blinding. Around them, the crowd has shifted away, moving past them like the figure is a stone in the middle of the stream, water cresting off their back. They seem to have a second pair of arms extending from their torso under the first. 

Who are you? Reani wonders. She can't hear Landen anymore.

_ I am the angel Samliel, and I am here to guard you and to guide you. _

An _ angel_?

That laugh again. _ Yes, child_.

I've never met an angel before.

_ Few have, but you're special, Reani. _

Her mother used to say the same, before she left. Landen tells her so, too, but it's different coming from him. When she thinks of her mother, the figure draws in closer, kneeling down in front of Reani with one hand resting under her chin, their skin a few shades lighter than her own.

(For as many of the details she remembers from the dream—and all the ones that would come after—she can never recall Samliel's face.)

_ I promise you this, Reani—one day, you will be able to think of your mother without feeling such sadness. It may not be soon, but that day will arrive. _

Will I ever see her again?

_ I cannot tell you that. _

Does she still love me?

Their thumb runs across Reani's cheek. _ I know that she does_.

Reani doesn't realize she's started crying until she feels her nose running. She wipes it on the front of Samliel's robe, feeling them smile as she does. By now, the crowds are nearly gone; she thinks she can hear Landen calling out, worried.

_ It's time for me to go, Reani, but trust that this was only the first meeting of many. In your dreams, I will find you again. _

"Reani?" That _ is _ Landen. In front of her, Samliel's glow starts to fade.

When will I see you next?

_ Soon. Don't worry, Reani—I have much to teach you, and plenty of work for us to accomplish together. You are special_—_not unlike myself_—a_nd it is time the world saw that. _ Just before the last of Samliel's light goes, they lean forward, pressing a soft, sun-warmed kiss to her forehead. _ Be brave, Reani. Until the next time— _

And then she wakes up.

When Reani opens her eyes, she wonders how she's slept so late—it feels too early for sunrise, but how else to explain the light in the room? She's young, though, and so it takes her a moment to realize that the beams aren't filtering through the curtains—that the light is brightest on her shoulders and arms, spilling like melted honey on her coverlet, arcing out around her in a circle and fading before it reaches the opposite wall. There is no mirror in Landen's spare room, and so it's some time later in the morning before Reani gets her first look at the halo over her white-blonde hair. In the light of it, her freckles seem to glow like sunrays shining through her skin. She feels the phantom warmth of Samliel's touch against her forehead.

Her mother would have loved to see it. _ Some day_—young Reani thinks, sudden and fiercely certain—_she will_. 


End file.
